W's Favorite Vituperative Comes Home To Roost

I live in a pre-figurative culture: the young teach their elders. When it comes to music, I am a Cro-Magnon Man. My son—hipster suburbanite that he is—forwarded a clever Web production that rivals the JibJab Web parody of "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie. Instead, the recent Web offering utilizes the music of Big Jim Ego and a song on a recent recording entitled, "They're Everywhere!" One of the cuts on that album is entitled “Asshole," and the lyrics “I've looked at it from your side/and I've looked at it from mine/and I know you had a hard time/when you were only 9/ but that was long ago /and know there's just no denying/that you're an asshole.” Simple harmonies and chords give the song a twist of country while the unapologetic lyrics bring it back to an urban declaration of "this is how it is." This earthy and scatological song provides the background for images from the Great Depression through the depressing images of the first Bush administration. To view the ultimate commentary on the 2004 election, go to Educational Filmstrips. When Herbert Hoover was sent packing by FDR after the 1932 election, Woody Guthrie sang: "So long, Mr. Hoover ...Thank God he's gone." In 2004, we have Big Jim Ego and "Asshole." If this is (fair & balanced) disdain, so be it.